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Four AM is when people are at their most vulnerable.
Roy thinks about that while he watches Jamie bend his body slowly, perfectly, into precisely the position Roy had told him to. It’s about muscle control, Roy had said, and it is, but it’s about other things, too.
Seeing how much he can ask for. Seeing what it takes for Jamie to stop bending and push back. So far Roy hasn’t found that line, and that’s interesting.
Jamie’s holding his pose, the football balanced on top of his outstretched foot. Roy watches him, how his muscles are quivering from the effort, how his breath is coming in rough, frustrated little bursts, how is tongue is poking out between his teeth.
“Relax,” he says, and Jamie shakes himself out, flicking sweaty strands of hair back from his forehead.
“It’s like yoga and torture at the same time,” he says, scooping the ball up and holding it to his chest. “What’s next?”
Roy has a lot of answers for that—seeing what else you’ll let me make you do, seeing how far I can push you before you break, seeing what you look like after you’re broken—but he swallows them down, takes a sip from his water bottle, and says, “Let’s see some headers. Five in a row. You miss, you start over.”
“Keepy-uppy but with my skull,” Jamie mutters, shaking himself out again before he tosses the ball up, eyes fixed on it as it spins in the air. “Can’t believe you get paid to come up with this shit.”
Roy does not get paid for these wee-hours sessions. Not through his contract, anyway. Not in money. He gets paid in the hot twisty satisfaction of seeing Jamie do exactly as he’s told. Exactly as Roy tells him.
Jamie misses after the third header, sighs in frustration, tosses it up again. Roy could count them off, but he doesn’t, just takes another drink and watches the sweat run down from Jame’s hairline to his jawline and then drip off into the air.
It takes him four sets before he gets to five bounces, and he looks ridiculously pleased with himself as he collects the ball again. “Well, Coach?”
Take your clothes off. Get on your knees. Yes, here in the middle of the park. Are you arguing with me?
Roy pushes those thoughts back, locks them away, throws away the key. “Cool-down jog. Go.”
Jamie drops the ball and moves off, picking up a gentle stride down the jogging path. Roy leans against a tree and looks up at the sky, just barely smuged with light so it’s purple-gray instead of black.
Four AM is when people are their most vulnerable. The line of Jamie’s throat, the curve of his waist, the twitches in his calf muscles when he comes to a stop after an intense burst of work. Vulnerable.
The impossible soft skin of his torso when he lifts his shirt to wipe his face, with those hard muscles underneath. Roy’s mind wanders every time to taking a knife, cutting a line down the middle, and then peeling the skin back like a peach’s skin, to see what it all looks like underneath.
He breathes out through clenched teeth, then back in through his nose. He’s getting used to these dark hours. He’s getting used to the thoughts they pull up from out of him. One of these mornings he’ll reach out, run his fingers over that vulnerable throat, and tell Jamie to be still for him.
Whatever happens after that, it’s going to be beautiful, he thinks, and it’s going to taste of salt.